This article is part of our special section on the DealBook Summit that included business and policy leaders from around the world.nextbet

Barney Banks shot a cute video of himself changing his son’s diaper. His mother-in-law suggested he post it to TikTok. His partner agreed. So he did.

“In 24 hours, we had 100,000 followers from changing that one diaper and five million-plus views,” said Mr. Banks, a former professional dancer who is now an e-sports host. “Why? It seems like certain areas of content creation explode on the scene at different times. I hit the parenting and content creator spike.”

Today, a little more than a year and a half after that post, Mr. Banks has 1.7 million followers under the TikTok handle @iammrbanks and has amassed 48.6 million likes on his posts. He now has sponsorship deals with Pampers, baby food companies and clothing brands as well as an agent to negotiate all of it for him.

This is the randomness and power of the creator economy, a loosely defined amalgam of people who post content, amass followers and likes, and get paid for their reach. What’s not random is the size of the creator economy. It is projected to be valued around $480 billion by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs Research.

“A lot of people think the creator economy is people on Instagram posting about beauty products and making money from it,” said Derek Goode, senior vice president of creator marketing at 160over90, a brand agency owned by the entertainment company Endeavor. “That’s a sliver of it.”

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.nextbet

• nextbet
• The
• in
• Economy
• Creator